FRVITS

 

 

picture by Cléo

Just a quick one today about the debut release of this new band from Montreal, Canada, called FRVITS. This guys come from bands like Blurry Eyes, American Lips, Tricky Woo and got some strong links with Priors and Duchess Says if I'm not mistaken. Ok you've probably never heard of most of these bands anyway so who cares ?

You're right let's jump into the pit! 

 

 

 That's some cool artwork.

Released on Slovenly Recordings from Reno, Nevada, this 6-track EP fits right in the "rock'n roll with a kinda of wild attitude" label's catalogue next to The Spits, The Cavemen, Bipolar, Sore Points and even the Loudmouths and many more... (including Priors and Duchess Says already mentioned before). 

Yes a lot of garage punk madness in there indeed (if garage punk ever meant anything).

 

 

 

  Yes it's called Magiciens Hardcore and it's true that with none of the 6 tracks reaching the 1:30 mark, these guys play it damn fast and damn short, but it does not mean FRVITS is hardcore. FRVITS is punk rock, FRVITS is fast, slightly melodic but straight to the point, FRVITS got some synth in it, FRVITS is cool and fun like a pool in the sun.

 

You remember The Dwarves ? Yes it does bring back old memories of embarrassing skateboard falls and silly teenage jokes right?... well the singer of the kings of trashy-but-fun melodic punk rock makes a vocal appearance on Abortion Hoops which gives, on top of an idea of the level of connection the Quebecois have in the scene, a good overview of the "fun" side the band is taking. Which is, don't get me wrong, not a bad thing at all.

It could even be smarter than it looks, Stupid Era is, after all, a pretty good title for a record reflecting a time where the western world (at least) and north america (in particular) seemed to fall (or keep falling?) in a caricature of idiocracy where stupidity (or at least its caricature) is no longer the subversive expression of the rejection of an adult world guided by reason, but on the contrary the dominant ideology of a society adrift. And this is, in my opinion, a good question for the "silly punk rock" scene, how to adapt to this without participating in spite of oneself?

I guess there are a lot of answers to that.

 

As a French speaker I appreciate that they "hide" a (few) French words here and there, it's always a good thing to remind everyone that Québec is still Québec. A (mostly) french speaking part of the world where rock'n roll bands are as wild and furious as they're good and fun!

Go get some FRVITS! 

 

 

 

   

You can listen to FRVITS on RAF#25

 

 

 

 

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Sex Work

 

Let's start bluntly: Sex Work is a new band from Berlin, Germany.

A new band made of four guys I can't really figure out but who, I assume, are full of some kind of twisted humor that makes people pose like a lame 70s classic rock band, choose a not so easy name to google at work and deliver some top notch killer punk rock songs...

Because that's the whole point of all that aesthetic twist I guess... to distract us from the whole point, which is, bluntly, that Sex Work fucking rules...

 

Featuring a few veterans from the German independant music scene, in particular the singer of a trash/fastcore band that people my age might remember which, in addition to being inspired by a cult silly movie, played some pretty cool stuff (Surf Nazis Must Die) and one of the guy behind Big Nuff Studio (he's played in a few bands as well of course), Sex Work immediately asserts itself as a mature group that gives itself the means to provide the quality of its passion (well THAT does sound like some pompous rock review crap!).

 

 Yes there is something deeply disturbing with this cover but let's move on.

The band recently released a tape featuring three "new" tracks on one side and the two-track Nasal Spray EP (from summer 2020) on the other side (yes tapes have two sides) which gives us a grand total of five tracks so I'll consider it as one release.

And damn... those five tracks rip!

Far from the leather-and-studs scene or any stuck-in-an-era genre (although I don't hold any grudge against these scenes and genres as you do know!), the four Berliners deliver energetic, catchy, fast and interesting songs that can only seduce the punk rock lover buried in your deep self, little fella. 

I mean it's not so easy to describe, the bass is tumbling down from the cliffs with its heavy lines, the guitar brings some air and melodies from time to time while the singer sounds pissed and desperate but never really falls into hardcore-like screams or way-too-cheesy vocals, no it's just perfectly balanced... 

And the recording... the recording is GOOD! It sounds modern but with a vintage touch that recalls the first wave of british "maintream" punk bands and it's good for a change not to bathe in a pool of noise and fury as I've tended to do for a while.

I can't really say that their songs are political, cynical or whatever else but there is for example Dennis Rodman which takes the piss of this has-been basketball player I know only for his weird friendship with Kim Jong-un (and that's definitely enough information to write a couple of good punk songs I guess). There are also Ups & Downs in a Liftboys Life and Nasal Spray which by their titles only will make your understand the kind of lyrics you can expect, and that's perfectly fine to me!

 

Sex Work is a great modern punk band, it got everything that makes punk punk but also what makes modern modern (damn that's a silly sentence but you know what I mean I hope). And there is another band I can think of that made me the same impression lately, that's Cool Jerks (from England) which blew my mind last year. Both bands have the same intelligent approach of a music that has always been more a medium of expression than a particular musical style (even if it is not completely true) where energy, passion and the desire to "make noise" remain the main ingredients of this potion against boredom and conformism that has intoxicated us all for decades (and for the best).

  Don't avoid it, SEX WORK is THE WORK!

 

  N,J'Oi!

 

 

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Une publication partagée par SEX WORK (@sexworkband)

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Sex Work on RAF#26.

 

 

 

  

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Ex-Dom

 

A lot of cool demos have been popping out from a bit everywhere lately and Ex-Dom's Extincion De Dominio is definitely one of them.

 

 

   This young band from Bremen, Germany, features two Germans and two Colombians and delivers a great mix of straight forward hardcore punk with lyrics both in Spanish and German. Some will say that it can be described as "southamerican hcpunk meets primitive deutsch punk" and I will not deny the presence of this very characteristic "Colombian ferocity" of the current scene I've written about many times, but the first band I immediately thought of when listening to the Ex-Dom frontman shouting and barking all over the place does not come from South america or South-bavaria, but from Israel and is called Jarada!

 

To me both bands got the same kind of "heavy intensity meets fastness featuring raw rage" kinda vibe and I won't say it's a bad thing as I really like the first Jarada LP (I am a bit less fan of the second one but tastes and colours you know).

Anyway the tapes are out (or should be soon) on Ruin Nation Records and Sabotage Records in Europe (two labels from Bremen focusing on raw and heavy stuff), Fuerza Ingobernable Discos in Colombia and Open Palm Tapes in the US.

This being said these six tracks deserve a vinyl release in my humble opinion.

If you were lucky enough to attend the (mini) K-Town hardcore fest this year you may have gotten a good glimpse of the band's potential.

N,J'Oi!

You can listen to Ex-Dom on RAF#24.

 

 

 

  

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S.O.H

 

Don't get fooled by the cover of SOH's Life On Edge, I'm not dragging you today in the muddy pool of a mediocre mix of metal and punk à-la Plasmatics that the hideous fantasy/post-apocalyptic/Mad Max artwork evokes... it's pure raging female-fronted punk meets hardcore we're talking here! 

 

 

  Hailing from the glorious city of Los Angeles, California, System Of Hate popped suddenly out of the blue, taking many by surprise (me at least, which is already a lot), without an invitation card or recommendations, like a last minute guest that nobody was expecting.

Believe me dear readers, I've looked around the internet and the online world seems to know dogshit about this new quartet... who are these guys?

edit: The singer is also fronting the LA post-punk band The Tissues!

 

Whoever they are they deliver six tracks of raging D-beat meets hardcore you should not miss! It's fast, furious and angry as fuck! The singer just keeps screaming again again, barking against the system and letting a shitload of frustration burst out!

It makes me think of a less brutal version of C.H.E.W or of some D-beats bands I've written about recently like the Australians from Sepsis, the New Yorkers from Fairytale or of Haircut's last EP (which is more hardcore yes) or even of Tizzi which recently released a pretty cool demo. Anyway the past five years have not lacked furious bands with killer female front vocals!

 

I have to mention Restless and Superficial, probably my favorite tracks of the album, where the band slows down the pace to let appear another kind of punk, not so far from their main area of expertise of course but a bit less straight forward and very refreshing. A record of intense music needs a couple of tracks like that to let the mind digests all the punches. 

 

 A very good start from a mysterious band! 

Too bad the cover is not more appealing!

 

N,J'Oi! 

 

 

picture by Scott Free

picture by Sarah

 You can listen to S.O.H on RAF#26

   

 

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Laxisme

 

You may have heard of Phantom Records while digging in some weird (but great) german punk bands like Schiach and Pisse or while enjoying some skilled noise/post-hardcore bands like Dewaere (Salut Patrick!) or Melt Downer but today I'm gonna write a few words about another kind of blues produced by the German label... French punk rock!

 

 

 

From the very first seconds of  L'étau I knew I had heard this voice somewhere else, this guy has a very distinctive voice tone and way of singing you don't easily forget. Damn but where was it? It rang a bell for sure but a very distant one you know... so I had to dig...

At first I thought of the 2000s/2010s "77 punk revival" scene (you know, these guys wearing striped t-shirts, sunglasses and badges bigger than their heads who caught PTSD at a Briefs' show) which, in France, happened to be mainly based in Marseille at the time. Yes these guys were playing in bands like The Hatepinks and The Irritones and were really close to the Marseille-based label Relax-O-Matic (which fortunately managed to get out of this niche afterwards).

 

 Anyway that's what not exactly what I was looking for, so I kept digging in my memories and my hard drives and thought of La Flingue but no... that was still not it... and finally I stumbled across La Vase (a "french" punk rock band from Leipzig, Germany, yes that's a bit weird) and that was it! That was the same guy behind the mic for sure!

From there it was easy to trace the trail and fall back on my original intuition: the Marseille connection! Indeed this guy (let's call him Kevin) used to sing in the great 77 garagish punk band The Aggravation (they released a great split with the great Defenestrors and a great LP, check them out!).

 

The band features also Jean-Baptiste Meyrieux, who's been behind the scene of numerous French (but not only) bands' recording sessions for the past five years or so (Litovsk, Douche Froide, Short Days and more) and has traded his mixing table for the drums here, and Billie from The Harry Anslingers (another fast and slightly melodic punk rock band from Leipzig named after the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics who did not get famous for his liberals opinions).

So yeah Laxisme (laxity/permissiveness in French) is from Leipzig as well (Kevin lives there now I suppose, not a bad place for punk rock I guess) and got the same kind of vibe The Aggravation and La Vase had, it's pure well-played high energy punk rock and it's in French! Highly enjoyable I may say...

So if you don't mind a bit of melody in your punk and a bit of French kiss in your classics, you're definitely at the right place!

N,J'Oi!

 

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You can listen to Laxisme on RAF#26.

 

 

 

 

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Children With Dog Feet

 

picture by

Kirsten Thoen

If you've read a few of my past reviews/posts/whatever you may have noticed that Goth/Death Rock/Cold Wave and all these kinds of "dark" musics are not my cup of tea at all. I don't know much about these genres to be honest as I was never interested in listening to bands affiliated to them (which does make sense I guess). 

But let's focus on death rock for a minute, I love death-rock-infused anarcho punk bands like Rudimentary Peni or Slimy Member so a friend advised to give a try to Christian Death's early materials and I did, and no, definitely no, not my kind of brew.

But I'm still interested in death-rock infused punk, and that's why Children With Dog Feet comes now into play here. 

 

 Let's start with the end for a change, I discovered Children With Dog Feet (CWDF) with this track recently released on their bandcamp and titled Killed By Goth. As far as I know the Killed By Death compilations (which have turned into Killed By Whatever-you-want) never reached Goth territories but did nevertheless venture into Death Rock, why not after all.

Killed By Goth immediately hooked me up, it's straight forward, full of low-fi punk energy and the way the vocals sound give a great death rock vibe. And yes the reference to the "KBD genre" makes total sense as this track got some of the characteristics of the early punk tunes you could find in the first compilations (and the "intro" is an obvious reference to that of course). 

But let's rewind a little bit.

CWDF is a new band from New York City featuring four punk veterans who've played in numerous underground bands for the past decade or so. The vocalist Chi, in particular, used to sing in the death rock influenced Anasazi and performs also now in another new act, called Blu Anxxiety, that you should check out if you're into dark "avant-garde" stuff.

Whereas I'm pretty sure Blu Anxxiety is not for me I'm trying to get into Anasazi's discography and there are some songs I like but I'm still not sure what I think about the whole thing though.

But let's come back to CWDF: their first record, the Curb Your Anarchy tape, was released on Toxic State Records (great NYC label which produced a few bands you should know about) in march of this year and was an immediate success.

As I explained above I discovered the band with the very punk and straight forward Killed By Goth which could only satisfy my old hardcore punk fan's ears but the this tape's four tracks are a bit different: the tempo fluctuates between a kind of dark mid-tempo and a fastest, more punk, one and the overall atmosphere is quite gloomy. But unlike a certain clean-sounding fringe of the black-eyed scenes, CWDF sounds always messy, angry, mean and chaotic... a bit like if the noisiest scandinavian punk bands were copulating throbbingly in the basement of a London goth party if you know what I mean. 

Of course there is the slower Leatherface which develops a very gothic atmosphere before exploding without restraint in a delightful chaos but even these parts, that I might not have appreciated in other circumstances, fit very well in the whole.

In the end Children With Dog Feet delivers a very interesting mix of things I'm not used to and it works surprisingly really well for me. I've already listened to their tracks numerous times and did not grow bored of it.

I'm very curious to see what comes next!

N,J'Oi!

  You can listen to Children With Dog Feet on RAF#25

 

 

 

  

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Optic Nerve

 

picture by TheUndergroundStage

 

Let's go back for a sec to the land of vegemite and never-ending lockdowns : Optic Nerve (to not be mistaken with the pre-Fuzztones american band) are hailing from Sydney, Australia, have been around since 2019 or late 2018 and have delivered since then two great tapes I have to tell you about!

 

 

 

 

It all started with this 4-track demo recorded live in the suburb of Sydney in 2019. From the first seconds of Sniper it's clear that Optic Nerve got all the right influences in the right order to win my eternal love and lust, a lot of cool 80s USHC yes of course but also, and that's when it gets really interesting, an unusual touch of "clear/clean" guitar sound which gives  a little something of classic rock / country music meets early hardcore...

Ok, said this way it probably sounds pretty bad but that's not what you think. Imagine Rites Of Spring jamming with some guys from the first wave of DC hardcore bands (that's actually exactly what Rites Of Spring was doing by the way) but the guitar players had forgotten their distortion/overdrive pedals in their schoolbags... Something like that...

Optic Nerve manage to deliver four tracks which are simultaneously fast, catchy, well-written and enjoyable, they're definitely punk songs but they're also songs written and played by guys who know what they're doing and have a really smart approach to punk music. 

A lot has been said about the Australian music scene (and the indie, punk and hardcore scenes in particular) and Optic Nerve stand at the crossroads of these different scenes, mixing the "thoughtful" and "sensitive" side of indie, the energy of hardcore and the emotional slap in the face of city punk. Brilliant! 

 

I'm going to stay courteous, not spend any time on the cover artwork and jump straight to the point, which is the music for those who thought they were on a custom low riders fan blog.

 Two years later after their impressive demo, Optic Nerve are back with another tape, a 5-track one released on Urge Records this time. I've mentioned the Sydney-based label a couple of times here before as it's released some of the most interesting recent Australian bands, I'm thinking of Concrete Lawn and Utopian.

 

 

 

The demo sounded quite good but it was a demo, with this EP we can finally here all "the layers of texture": the galloping riffs recall more than ever some kind of "rural rock" music whereas the vocals do not abandon its punk and hardcore influences.

Doing the "musical splits" is always a perilous exercise (many have tried...) but what Optic Nerve are doing is not exactly that, these guys are just playing some first-class fast punk and, thanks to subtle ways of simply playing with the way the guitar sounds and a handful of countryish riffs, manage to turn it into "this good old cake with a new brand of topping" if you know what I mean.

These five tracks sound good, are good and I don't get bored listening to them over and over again... so once gain it's...BRILLIANT!

Optic Nerve just made it into my year's top!

N,J'Oi!

picture by TheUndergroundStage

 

 

z

   

You can listen to Optic Nerve on RAF#25

 

 

 

 

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